Critical Smackdown: The 20 Most Ferocious Restaurant Reviews of All Time

From the outside looking in, the restaurant critic’s job is a cushy gig—feasting in the hottest restaurants, sipping the finest wines, and essentially getting paid for a life of nonstop culinary hedonism. But once in a while, a dining experience comes along that is so uniformly horrible, it sends the professional eater into a blackout rage. And when the gloves come off, food writers are often at their sharpest, spewing bile with the same zeal they usually reserve for shoveling in the next torchon of foie gras.

Some call these negative reviews slams, or hit pieces—we call them smackdowns. They’re entertaining as all get-out to read, but it’s not all fun and games: Harsh reviews can make or break a restaurant in a matter of minutes. Here’s a look at 20 of the most chilling smackdowns of all time, as well as their consequences.

Frank Bruni Picks A (Food) Fight With Jeffrey Chodorow

Review: "Giving Luxury the Thrill of Danger," New York Times (Feb 7, 2007)Target: Kobe Club
Main Gripe: Bruni systematically butchered gimmick-loving restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow’s over-the-top kobe beef-themed juggernaut, hating on everything from the samurai-centric décor to the overpriced, ineptly-prepared food.
Memorable Line: “If Akira Kurosawa hired the Marquis de Sade as an interior decorator, he might end up with a gloomy rec room like this. Will the last samurai to leave please turn on the lights?”
Aftermath: Following the zero-star review, Chodorow took out a full-page ad in the Times (to the tune of a reported $83,000),questioning Bruni’s credentials as a critic and claiming the review was a personal attack. Alas, the restaurant closed in April 2009.

A. A. Gill Unmasks The Worst Restaurant in the World

Review: "Tour de Gall," Vanity Fair (April 2011)
The Target: L’Ami Louis
Main Gripes: In 1,500 poetically nasty words, Gill delightfully eviscerates a long-running, highly-touted Parisian bistro that’s popular with travelers, ultimately concluding that it is, indeed, the worst restaurant in the world.
Memorable Line: It’s worth reading the entire review, but here’s a choice cut: “It gives you the feeling of being in a second-class railway carriage in the Balkans. It’s painted a shiny, distressed dung brown. The cramped tables are set with labially pink cloths, which give it a colonic appeal and the awkward sense that you might be a suppository.” On the topic of the food, Gill goes on to say, “[Foie gras arrives], intimidatingly gross flabs of chilly pâté, with a slight coating of pustular yellow fat. They are dense and stringy, with a web of veins. I doubt they were made on the premises. The liver crumbles under the knife like plumber’s putty and tastes faintly of gut-scented butter or pressed liposuction. The fat clings to the roof of my mouth with the oleaginous insistence of dentist’s wax.”Aftermath: C’est la vie: Seemingly unfazed, L’Ami Louis continues to operate, even making Gayot’s “Top 10 Bistros In Paris” list this year.

Matthew Norman Razes Le Relais

The Guardian (November 18, 2005)The Target: Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote
Main Gripes: Le Relais is a cultishly-loved Paris-based chain known for their limited offerings: steak frites and green salad—that’s about it. You’d think that such specialization would lead to a perfect product, but Norman finds the gimmicky food both tasteless and a rip-off.
Memorable Line: “What such abysmal beef costs I've no idea, because I'd rather ask the butcher for woodlice, but supposing we each had six ounces maximum of this wretchedly tasteless meat, we generously estimated it at a quid… For the "secret sauce", a mustard-based crime against humanity (of course they keep it secret—if they published the recipe, Hans Blix would be out of retirement in five minutes), let us add 5p…”
Aftermath: Seemingly unfazed, the chain continues to operate, even opening a new location in New York City in 2009.

Besha Rodell Blasts Briza’s Bizarre Bites

Creative Loafing (March 2012)The Target: Briza
Main Gripes: Although Atlanta chef Janine Falvo appeared on Top Chef (she lasted for one episode), Rodell claims no one in the city has heard of her, then goes on to explain why: Her avant-garde cookery at this fancy hotel restaurant is bizarre and inedible.
Memorable Line: “A beet salad, accompanied by goat cheese ‘panna cotta,’ was a plate of beets that, as my friend said, ‘Might turn children off of vegetables forever.’ They tasted like they had been cooked last week and refrigerated next to an uncovered vat of liquid aspirin.”
Aftermath: The restaurant is still in business, though the menu now includes more mainstream “farm-to-table fare served with a Southern flair.”

Sam Sifton Sinks Imperial No. Nine’s Ship

New York Times (June 7, 2011)Target: Imperial No. Nine
Main Gripe: Sifton brings the crab mallet down on bad-boy Top Chef­ alum Sam Talbot’s flashy seafood spot in the Mondrian Hotel. Along the way, he manages to question both the quality of the fish and the mental competence of the customers eating there.
Memorable Line: “It can be awful there, the kind of restaurant where groups of women who might be Real Housewives gather in blowouts and big rings to talk and use their mobile phones…”
Aftermath: Five months after the zero-star review, Talbot left the restaurant due to “irreconcilable differences” with the owners over the “future vision” of the restaurant. It has since been replaced by Isola Trattoria and Crudo Bar—a completely new concept with a new chef.

Nancy Nichols Compares MesoMaya To Prison Food

D Magazine (December 2011)The Target: MesoMaya
Main Gripes: All Nichols wants is some authentic Mexican food. Instead, what she gets at flashy Dallas newcomer MesoMaya is Tex-Mex that’s both boring and poorly prepared, from the hands of an unhelpful staff.
Memorable Line: “How anyone could screw up a flan in a Mexican restaurant is beyond me, but the version I was served twice at MesoMaya wouldn’t pass muster in a prison cafeteria. The skimpy pie slice of custard was rubbery and slid around my mouth like a tablespoon of Crisco.”
Aftermath: A few days after Nichols’ review, MesoMaya owner Mike Karns posted a Facebook note encouraging guests to leave feedback about the restaurant, but noting that Nichols’ review was “far different from, in fact contrary to any other restaurant review or any other feedback we have received to date.” The restaurant is still open.

Ryan Sutton Damns Del Posto

Review: "Del Posto’s $500 Menu Brings Mushy Lasagne, Lousy Chips: Buzz," Bloomberg News (October 20, 2010)
The Target: Del Posto
Main Gripes: Sutton is displeased with nearly every aspect of Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich’s vision of white table-cloth Italian, calling out the overpriced, unoriginal menu; slipshod service; and over-the-top décor. His scant praise is reserved for the cocktails.
Memorable Line: “Mario Batali’s Del Posto could be the most expensive Italian restaurant in Manhattan, if not the U.S. That’s the most impressive superlative I could muster after eating my way through what looks like a 24,000 square foot tribute to the Venetian hotel and casino in Vegas.”
Aftermath: Given that Sutton’s review came out about a month after then-New York Times critic Sam Sifton’s glowing four-star review, business at Del Posto wasn’t too hurt by the slam. It remains one of the most acclaimed restaurants in New York.

Hanna Raskin Blasts Ballard’s Bad BBQ Boom

Review: "Ballard's Bad Barbecue Boom," Seattle Weekly (May 30, 2012)
The Target(s): Three separate Seattle BBQ restaurants: RoRo BBQ & Grill, The Boar’s Nest, and Bitterroot
Main Gripes: Raskin calls out a trio of new Seattle ’cue joints for their culinary minstrelsy, announcing that “the bulk of self-appointed pitmasters around Puget Sound so baldly denigrate the slow-and-low tradition with their microwave ovens and tinfoil that it's astounding they haven't yet been slapped with accusations of cultural misappropriation.”
Memorable line: Raskin reserves most of her insults for RoRo, calling it “the equivalent of a straw house, serving miserable, trucked-in meat that any sentient eater would instantly dismiss… Pork ribs are a travesty of overcooking, with the bones falling from the flesh like tired feet slipping out of shoes. Sliced brisket the color of sweat-stained muslin runs woefully short on smoke and moisture.”
Aftermath: All three restaurants remain in business.

Julia Kramer Sasses Graham Elliot’s Sandwiches

Review: "Graham Elliot's a celebrity. But is he still a chef?", Time Out Chicago (January 26, 2011)
The Target: grahamwich
Main Gripes: Kramer skewers chef Graham Elliot for his celebrity image, then questions whether he still counts as a chef, thanks to the insipid creations at his Chicago sandwich shop.
Memorable line: “Which brings me to the rest of the grahamwich menu, a dilettantish assortment of international sandwiches that reflect not just repeated failures of execution but a lack of care in their conception. The lowest of the low is the banh mi, a baguette that bears the burden of congealed, gelatinous cubes of pork belly, slimy strips of pineapple and dank shiitake mushrooms.”
Aftermath: Less than three months after Kramer’s review, Elliot completely revamped the menu, keeping only the two sandwiches that Kramer said she liked. The restaurant is still open.

Ruth Reichl Peeved At Pretentious Twits

Review: "Where the Romanic Decor Is the Draw," New York Times (March 11, 1998)
The Target: The Box Tree
Main Gripes: Despite billing itself as one of Manhattan’s most beautiful and romantic restaurants, the Box Tree left Reichl feeling cold with its pretentious service, the overpriced food, and the precious atmosphere.
Memorable Line: “Today the Box Tree is a pretentious place serving fancy, not very good Continental food for $86 a person, prix fixe… The service used to be genial and attentive. Now it is as pretentious as the setting—when it is anything at all.”
Aftermath: Riechl’s pan wasn’t the only bad press the restaurant received in the winter of ’98: a nasty labor strike at the restaurant also made headlines that February. The restaurant managed to hold on for another few years, but eventually closed in 2002.

Michael Bauer Slams Old-School Seafood Spot

Review: "Why Are All Those People Lining Up?", San Francisco Chronicle (March 12, 2000)
The Target: Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto
Main Gripes: Spenger’s is a century-old seafood institution with lines perpetually out the door, but Bauer—despite his self-professed “soft spot for places with a long history”—fails to understand why: The food, service and scene leave him thoroughly unimpressed. He describes, in withering detail, the failures of close to a dozen different dishes, before ending with this parting shot:
Memorable Line: “By the end of each meal our frustration was at splitting-headache proportions; all we wanted was to pay the bill and leave…We contained our urge to sprint for the door and strolled past the sentries at the host stand. They saw us, but no one said, 'Good night'; maybe they knew it wasn't.”
Aftermath: The restaurant is still considered a Bay Area classic and remains popular with locals and tourists alike.

Jay Rayner Has No Love for Novikov

The London Observer (February 18, 2012)Target: Novikov
Main Gripe: Cranky critic extraordinaire Rayner (who just published an e-book of his all-time worst dining experiences) lays waste to London’s fashionable big-box Pan-Asian/Italian outpost from one of Putin’s favorite Russian restaurateurs.
Memorable Line: “[Novikov] is generally very, very bad: prices that knock the wind out of you and moments of cooking so cack-handed, so foul, so astoundingly grim you want to congratulate the kitchen on its incompetence…in a city with a talent for opening hateful and tasteless restaurants, Novikov marks a special new low.”
Aftermath: Mixed reviews from other critics followed (including several that echoed Rayner’s slam), but Novikov continues to be popular with London diners.

Steve Cuozzo Goes In on Lady Gaga’s Dad

Review: "You'll gag on the food at Gaga's," New York Post (Feb 2, 2012)
Target: Joanne
Main Gripe: Legendarily curmudgeonly Post criticCuozzo checks out this Upper West Side trattoria owned by celeb-chef Art Smith (a.k.a. Lady Gaga’s pops) on opening night and proceeds to slam the food, service, and scene.
Memorable Line: “You don’t expect a brand-new eatery to be running on all cylinders. But Joanne, owned by the pop superstar’s parents, last night was running mainly on acrid-smelling burnt vinegar wafting intermittently through the raucous dining room… Grilled calamari with bitter greens and radicchio were the worst I’ve had in a lifetime of squid-mongering, the salad unseasoned and the calamari like leather.”
Aftermath: Cuozzo was widely called out as a bully for reviewing the spot on opening night (most food writers wait at least three months before weighing in on a new restaurant). Middling reviews followed from other critics, though, and Joanne is currently on Eater’s Death Watch.

Victoria Pesce Elliott’s Review Is No Picnic

Review: "Zero Stars for Picnic," Miami.com(August 3, 2010)
The Target: Picnic
Main Gripes: Elliott can’t quite wrap her head around this nouveau “New York Diner” in Miami: It’s part greasy spoon, part nightclub, all overpriced and poorly conceived, with “odd, do-it-yourself” décor to boot.
Memorable Line: Under the “What Didn’t Work” section: “The macaroni and cheese ‘spring roll’—a flabby, pale yellow tube that's unappetizing even to look at, served with a milky Gouda dipping sauce” and “wines by the glass that include boxed Inglenook.”
Aftermath: After a series of scathing reviews from other critics and customers, Picnic closed by the end of the year.

Robert Sietsema Harshes on Hofbrau Bierhaus

Review: "Hofbrau Bierhaus Is a Real Brew-haha," Village Voice (April 27, 2011)
Target: Hofbrau Bierhaus
Main Gripe: Sietsema can barely make his complaints about the overpriced beer and under-flavored food heard over the earsplitting din at this hokey Bavarian bierhaus. (He actually uses a decibel meter to record the noise levels, which clock in above the “threshold for pain.”)
Memorable Line: “The litany of culinary failures [is] extensive…a sauerbraten platter holding dry pucks of beef, with none of the tartness implied by the name; a sautéed vegetable mélange tasting of dodgy fat and dried oregano; and a flavorless cucumber salad so damp it should have been wrung out like a mop prior to serving.”
Aftermath: Despite Sietsema’s slam, Hofbrau remains popular, particularly with a fratty after-work crowd that may not read alternative weeklies like the Village Voice.

“At Least The Water Is Cold:” The Only Praise Tom Seitsema Has for Le Pigalle

Review: "At Least the Water Is Cold," Washington Post (July 30, 2006)
Target: Le Pigalle
Main Gripe: Sietsema doesn’t take many issues with the scene or service at this pricey French bistro, reserving most his vitriol for the food, nearly all of which he deems inedible. “At least the water is cold” is the highest praise he can muster.
Memorable Line: “Personally, I contemplated asking my editor for hardship pay… Too much of the food here just makes me sad. Sad that the chef isn't trying harder and sad that so many shortcuts are taken… The entrees also prompt a quick call for 'the check, please.' No matter how you request your duck or lamb chops, they come the same way: gray in the center.”
Aftermath: The restaurant didn’t make it through the end of the year—it closed in late 2006, owing to what an associate of the owner described as “overpriced and terrible food.”

Tim Carman Doesn’t Want Jack

Review: "Jack Can't Cook," Washington City Paper (March 23, 2007)
Target: Jack’s Restaurant & Bar
Main Gripes: Jack’s, a casual American joint that replaced the short-lived Le Pigalle, didn’t fare much better than its predecessor: Carman has harsh words for almost all of the food, ultimately concluding that chef Herbert Kerschbaumer simply can’t cook.
Memorable Line: “You’d think the new chef would have absorbed the lessons of Le Pigalle deep into his bones. He apparently hasn’t. His menu is a minefield of latent dangers, which can be triggered by any number of things, from an inferior (or missing) ingredient to sloppy execution in the kitchen to poor plating.”
Aftermath: Jack’s lasted longer than Le Pigalle, but ultimately shuttered in early 2010. It was replaced by a well-received Turkish restaurant called Agora, which is still open today.

Jonathan Gold is Duped Into Eating at Olive Garden

Review: "Jonathan Gold Reviews the Oliver Garden," LA Weekly (April 7 2011)
The Target: Olive Garden
Main Gripes: Gold, widely acclaimed for his exploration of L.A.’s under-the-radar ethnic eateries, falls victim to his own ill-planned April Fool’s Day joke and accidentally ends up eating at a local Olive Garden. He miserably reports that the food isn’t actually that bad—he simply can’t live with himself for patronizing the restaurant.
Memorable Line: “I would like to say that I enjoyed the tomato-y pasta e fagioli, which was after all no worse than the clear-out-the-crisper soups I make all the time, and that the tenderness of the fried calamari was greater than the sogginess of its breading...They weren't, though—they just weren't. Nor was the moment when the waiter filled the tiny wine glass to the rim and said, 'That'll do ya'; nor the chef's excited tales of the Culinary Institute of Tuscany, nor Anne's delight at my abject misery.”
Aftermath: Do you think anyone who eats at Olive Garden cares about Gold’s review?

Alan Richman’s Sexual Harassment Scandal

Review: "Diner for Schmucks," GQ (September 2011)
The Target: M Wells
Main Gripes: This one’s a real doozy: Notoriously cranky critic Alan Richman visits quirky, critically beloved Queens restaurant M. Wells and experiences “appallingly” bad service. This alone is not scandalous, but when a waitress later accuses Richman of giving her a “hardy pat on the ass,” the review turns into a long-winded character defense, in which Richman denies the allegations and ultimately lambasts the state of service in the restaurant industry today.
Memorable Line: It’s really necessary to read the entire thing for proper context, but here’s a small sampling: “I do not forgive the people at M. Wells for what they have said. I wish there were some way they would not get away with it. I'm pretty certain they will, and I will always be sorry for that.”
Aftermath: Almost immediately, the food media world was buzzing with responses, ranging from think pieces on Serious Eats to straight-up slams from other critics, including Ryan Sutton, who characterized Richman’s “one-sided tirade” as “arguably the most irresponsible piece of restaurant criticism I've read in a long time.” Nevertheless, Richman took home this year’s Distinguished Restaurant Review Award from the James Beard Foundation. M Wells closed due to a landlord dispute in 2011, but the team recently opened M. Wells Dinette at PS1:MoMA.

S. Irene Virbila Fires Away At Fabio Viviani

Los Angeles Times (December 16, 2009)Target: Firenze Osteria
Main Gripes: Virbila is not impressed with the menu at Top Chef alum Fabio Vivani’s much-hyped first solo restaurant, calling it “Italian food for dummies” and chastising the celeb chef for not overseeing his own kitchen.
Memorable Line: “The stuffed pastas may be the worst I've ever encountered anywhere, big thick ugly things with either a butternut squash and ricotta filling that has the texture of baby food or, in the case of the braised short rib ravioli, a dry, almost sawdust-like filling. Oh, and Viviani is again out of town.”
Aftermath: Months later, Viviani told YumSugar that he “[didn’t] give a shit” about Virbila’s review, calling it pointless and accusing her of being biased toward his ex-business partner. He claimed that post-goose egg review, local customers rallied in support of Osteria, and business actually increased. The restaurant is still open today.

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